“There should be reasonable limits on campaign donations and it should be government of the many not the money and that’s what these two are trying to do right here,” Quinn told reporters after appearing before the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

Rauner, an equity investor who has put nearly $6.6 million of his personal funds into his bid for governor, reported last week his campaign had received $2.5 million from Griffin, founder and CEO of the Chicago based hedge-fund firm, Citadel.

Griffin’s donation was the largest single contribution given to a state candidate at least since the State Board of Elections began keeping electronic records two decades ago. Overall, Griffin has given Rauner’s campaign nearly $3.6 million.

Rauner’s campaign accused Quinn of trying to use the issue of campaign funding to distract from the Democratic governor’s problems involving allegations of political hiring and questionable spending involving an anti-violence program created shortly before the 2010 election.

Quinn signed into law the state’s first-ever limits on campaign donations in 2009—a year after the arrest of his predecessor, imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. But the law allows the $5,300 limit on donations for all candidates for a statewide office to be lifted if one of the candidates uses more than $250,000 in personal funds.

“It was a long battle to get campaign finance reform and that has been sabotaged now by the Rauner campaign. Rauner took contributions now far above the limits and that is a really tragedy I think for our state and our democracy,” Quinn said.

“I believe in campaign finance limits. When he broke the limits, I think he really did a disservice to the democracy of Illinois and we cannot have billionaires trying to buy their way into Illinois politics,” the Democratic governor said.

He said Rauner and Griffin were trying to “collaborate to try and buy an election.”

Quinn’s campaign has repeatedly tried to label Rauner as a “billionaire.” Rauner has said he is not a billionaire and he pegs his net worth as more than $500 million.

Rauner spokesman Mike Schrimpf said Quinn’s criticism belies the fact that the governor also has received money from wealthy donors.

“While ducking responsibility for misusing state funds for political purposes, Quinn's taken more than $1 million from Fred Eychaner and millions more from Springfield special interest groups,” Schrimpf said.

Eychaner, a longtime Democratic donor and president of Newsweb Corp., has given Quinn just more than $1 million in donations of $250,000 or less, state campaign finance reports show. He is Quinn’s largest individual donor.

Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday labeled his Republican opponent Bruce Rauner a “saboteur” who worked to block overhauls of state and city government worker pension systems but failed to present his own solutions.

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK — The Navy on Saturday commissioned the USS John Warner, adding a 12th Virginia-class submarine to the fleet and celebrating the legacy of its namesake, the retired senator who was hailed as a statesman.